Bride's Flight from Virginia City, Montana

by Murray Pura

  The red light of dawn played over Zeph’s eyelids and down over his mouth and the growth of beard that had begun in Virginia City, but he did not stir.

  Somewhere in that head of his, she thought, he is coming up with a plan to save us. Lord help him, she prayed.

  They had been so tired they hadn’t bothered folding down their seats and making up their beds after Green River. All the others in their sleeper car had done so. Many of the temporary partitions that created a flimsy illusion of privacy were still in place. Charlotte yawned, with her arm over her mouth. They had all slept pretty well just the same. Perhaps tonight they might set things up so they could stretch out their legs and put their heads down onto soft white pillows.

  Cody was up and whittling with the pocketknife Zeph had lent him. It looked to her as if a pretty good horse was emerging from the chunk of wood he’d picked off the ground in Green River. Cheyenne was still sleeping, nestled against Charlotte’s side.

  Charlotte gazed at the sky as it gradually turned blue like a fabric dipped in dye.

  She opened a book in her lap and tried to read. “I remember that.”

  She flicked her eyes off the book and up at Zeph. “Remember what?”

  “Great Expectations. I took it out once.” She smiled. “But did you read it?”

  He smiled back, sleep still in his brown eyes. “You think I didn’t?”

  “I’d just like to know. You borrowed a number of books from Iron Springs Public Library. I’ve often wondered how many of them you finished.”

  “Often?”

  “Often. Your titles were intriguing. Let’s see, Oliver Twist and Barnaby Rudge by Dickens. The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. I think you read everything by James Fenimore Cooper.”

  “I kept hoping you’d call me Natty Bumppo.”

  “I recall you took out The Deerslayer more than once.”

  “My favorite.”

  “So you read it?”

  “Three times. I even read Pride and Prejudice like you wanted.”

  “Like I wanted?”

  “‘Mister Parker, you will find some interesting male protagonists in her novels, as well as others not to be emulated.’”

  She laughed and put a hand over her mouth, as there were still so many people around them sleeping. “I don’t know if I should believe you.”

  “‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,’” he said, reciting the opening line of Pride and Prejudice.

  Her hand was still over her mouth. “‘I strive to do right, here,’” he continued, only this time quoting from The Deerslayer by Cooper, “‘as the surest means of keeping all right, hereafter. Hetty was oncommon, as all that know’d her must allow, and her soul was as fit to consart with angels the hour it left its body, as that of any saint in the Bible!’”

  Charlotte dropped her hand and gave a squeal of surprise and delight. The heavy man in the white suit and gold paisley vest snorted in his sleep. She clapped her hand over her mouth again.

  “Mister Wyoming,” she said through her fingers, “how can you play with such a good woman so? Have you really read all those books after all? Have you truly memorized all of Natty Bumppo’s lines in The Deerslayer? Every day you become a different man than the one I imagined you were. I don’t think I can bear it. You make my head spin as if I were waltzing.”

  “‘Lord, Judith, what a tongue you’re mistress of! Speech and looks go hand in hand, like, and what one can’t do, the other is pretty sartain to perform! Such a gal, in a month, might spoil the stoutest warrior in the colony.’”

  “Oh, stop! I completely misjudged you. I thought you were a good-hearted cowboy and Christian.”

  “That’s all I am.”

  “I did not think you carried Shakespeare in your saddlebag.”

  “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’”

  She dropped her hand from her mouth, her lips curved upward in a permanent smile, and shook her head. “You are incorrigible. And all this time it was my belief you took those books out of the library just to see me.”

  Zeph nodded. “That’s exactly why I did it.”

  “And that you chose authors I mentioned I liked just to please me.”

  “That is the only reason I chose them.”

  “But you read them!”

  Zeph shrugged and squinted at the ball of fire that was the sun lifting off the prairie. “Well, at first I read them because I had all these ideas of going on long evening rides with you and quoting the books to you.”

  “So you did want to impress me.” She felt happy inside at this thought.

  “Sure I did. Just didn’t realize I’d like the stories so much. Mom was a great reader, and we had a fair-size bookshelf in the house. I read books about King Arthur and William Tell and Robin of Sherwood. We had books bound in leather that put the plays of Shakespeare into story form, so I read Macbeth and Hamlet and King Lear. My favorite was Henry V: ‘once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more …’ I may dress cowboy and talk cowboy and act cowboy, but I have a first-class education in me, Missus Wyoming. I just like to hide it the way a Cheyenne brave hides himself in the buffalo grass.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one would understand.”

  She gazed at him. Zeph had already shown himself to be more of a man than she had ever dreamed he was during their flight from Iron Springs—the way he’d listened as she told about her Amish past, how he’d ridden after her and brought her horse to a halt, when he’d climbed out of the stage in a roaring storm and led the team of horses forward and saved them all. Now he was sitting in front of her and quoting lines from books and poems he’d memorized just so he could speak them to her on evening rides in the mountains at sunset. It was too much for her to take in, an answer to prayer beyond what she could ask or imagine. Yet the promise she had made to her brother bound her, and the binding must keep them apart. She felt a wetness slip down her cheek, but she did nothing to brush it away.

  “Here now,” he said softly and leaned across to wipe her face with a clean blue bandanna. He had the scent of apples and woodsmoke on him, as well as the pleasant smell of fresh soap that he’d washed up with at Green River.

  “Z,” she whispered.

  “It’s gonna be all right now. See? I’m talking like a cowpoke again.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “It’s all so beautiful, and it’s more than I ever dreamed. It’s too good to be true. I just know something bad is going to happen to take you away from me like Daddy was taken and Ricky and my mother.”

  “Shh. Shh. It doesn’t have to happen that way again just because it’s happened that way before. Chapters have different endings. Not all books leave you feeling sad, do they? Pride and Prejudice has a good marriage to bring the story to a close. Two good marriages, as a matter of fact.”

  “Those are just books, Z. This is real life.”

  “Books are written by people who’ve lived real life, Char. That’s the kind of thing a librarian like you should be telling me. What can a busted-up old cowpuncher really know about it?”

  She laughed. “Some busted-up old cowpuncher.”

  The whistle suddenly shrieked four times in a row. Zeph and Charlotte jumped. People stirred all around them and asked what was going on in confused and belligerent voices. Partitions came down. Cody’s eyes went wide in disbelief, and he pressed his face to the window.

  “Buffalo!” he shouted. “Buffalo!”

  Cheyenne woke up and looked out. Their seats were on the south side of the car, and the four of them could see the herd clearly.

  “How many, Pa?” asked Cody.

  Zeph was leaning over him to gaze out the window. “I’d say seven or eight hundred. Maybe a thousand. Isn’t that something?”

  “Did you ever see more than this?”

  “Son, I’ve
seem ‘em so thick there was no grass for a hundred miles, just buffalo moving like a wide and muddy brown river, like some kind of prairie Mississippi of hair and horns.”

  Cannonball had slowed the train down so passengers could get a better look. The man in the white suit stooped in the aisle to get a look out their window.

  “Amazing!” he said. “I thought there were only a few left.”

  “Mister,” Zeph said, “compared to what there was twenty years ago, this is a few.”

  Charlotte found herself fascinated by a grand bull at the edge of the rolling herd. It seemed to be staring at her and at the locomotive with a grandeur and defiance that impressed her, as if the sturdy old bull were declaring, “You will not defeat me. I will endure. You may have your hour. But I will not be vanquished.” Then he and the herd were gone, a dark shape moving slowly over the plains and raising a small haze of dust, not much, for there was some frost on the ground. Finally, there was only a black speck that could have been anything.

  “What does buffalo taste like?” asked Cheyenne.

  “Good,” said Zeph, sitting back down, “it’s very good.”

  “I’d like to try it someday.”

  “Well, my girl, we’ll see what we can do.”

  Charlotte looked at the health in Cody’s face and in Cheyenne’s and thanked God. She also saw the sparkle in Zeph’s eyes and realized how much he loved the West and the things that were part of it that few easterners understood. How would he feel being cooped up in Pennsylvania—the quietness of the land, the softness of the snow and winds, the lack of mountains and sharp peaks, and the impossibility of a chance glimpse of bison thundering over country that stretched for hundreds of miles without a building or a road or a sign?

  If we get to Pennsylvania.

  The fear fastened its teeth into her heart and mind, and she swiftly lost the peace and joy she had just been delighting in. Zeph was watching her face. She felt his gaze and looked over at him, not bothering to hide the cold, dark sensations that were paralyzing her thoughts and her happiness.

  He understood. One hand went into the pocket of the coat she had sewn for him and came out with his brother’s Bible. He opened it but did not bother to look down as he said, “‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.… Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’”

  She sat and listened and waited. Suddenly she realized how much she liked his voice and how much it soothed her to have him read to her.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “That’s it in a nutshell, Conner.” He smiled. “I’m getting used to that name. It’s not half bad.” “Please go on.”

  “Only way to beat this fear is to face it. We can’t keep running. We’ll be running forever as long as Raber’s alive: Wyoming, Nebraska, Illinois, Pennsylvania. He’d follow us all the way up into Canada or down into Comanche country. Probably cross the ocean to England to corner us in a back alley in London. Only one thing we can do.”

  Charlotte felt goose bumps on her arms under the sleeves of her dress, as if she knew what he was going to say before he said it, as if the same words were in her mind, too.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Zeph rubbed the beard on his jaw and looked away from her out at the miles of sunlit prairie glittering with morning frost.

  “We’re going to have to make sure he knows where we are and where we’re going and when we’ll be there. We’re going to have to draw him out and then face him down. We’re going to have to put the kids and ourselves right out there in the open as bait. Bait for a mad wolf named Seraphim Raber.”

  Chapter 13

  Zeph stood at the door to the telegraph office. He thought a moment and then pulled the badge from his pocket and pinned it on his coat. Then decided to remove his coat and broad-brimmed hat. Charlotte had plucked a spare from her luggage to replace the hat the winter storm had taken. He draped the hat and coat on a bench just outside the door, took the badge off the coat, and pinned it onto his shirt instead.

  “Afternoon, deputy,” said the elderly man at the counter. Zeph nodded. “I’ll need to send telegrams to the federal marshal in Iron Springs, Montana Territory, and another to the commander at Fort Laramie.” “Sure enough. Here’s the pad.”

  Zeph hunched over the countertop with a stub of pencil and began to print.

  Marshal Matthew Parker, We have had no trouble and are carrying on into Nebraska, kids are fine, will telegraph from Omaha, Deputy Marshal Zephaniah Parker.

  He and Charlotte had decided to make sure Raber knew where they were headed and when. They counted on the accomplice, whoever it was, to get ahold of Raber and let him know what their plans were and that the children were with them.

  Then he wrote another telegram out for Fort Laramie. Once again, he and Charlotte had talked it over. There was no guarantee the commander would do what Zeph asked. He only hoped the chance of nabbing Raber would make the fort commander cast all other plans to the wind. At the bottom he wrote, Zephaniah Truett Parker, Deputy US Marshal.

  He put a few dollars on the counter, but the elderly man waved him off. “No charge, Deputy.”

  “Well, then, consider it a lawman’s contribution to your retirement fund.”

  The man smiled. “Why, thank’ee kindly, Deputy.”

  Outside Zeph suddenly noticed the chill in the bright blue air and pulled his coat back on. With the large hat on his head and the badge in his pocket, he began to walk toward the shops on Main Street, no longer Deputy Marshal Zephaniah Parker, but Fremont Wyoming, farmer, father of two, and husband to one. He began to whistle a hymn without thinking, “Shall We Gather at the River.”

  He found Charlotte and the children in a general store, one he remembered from ‘73, the year he buried his father, except the shop was much larger now. Cody was staring at the six-guns locked under the glass countertop and Charlotte was saying, “Never mind those things, Cody, they’re nothing but death and destruction. Let me buy you something sweet instead. What do you think of these candies? Wouldn’t you like a big bag of them?”

  Cody stared at the small colored objects in the jar. “What are they?”

  “They call them jelly beans.”

  “What do they taste like?”

  “Oh, they taste very good, son,” said Zeph putting an arm around him. “First had some when I was in the army. A fellow named Schrafft used to have them sent down from Boston for the troops. The boys’d fight over these more than they’d fight over coffee. Yellow is lemon, red is raspberry or strawberry or cherry, black is licorice flavor. A big bag’d keep you smiling all the way through Nebraska.”

  “Excellent,” Cody said with a grin.

  “I’m happy to do it for you, dear,” Charlotte replied. “What about you, Cheyenne? A Silverhair and the three-bears size of bag? One that’s just right, not too big, not too small?”

  “I’m too old for that.” Cheyenne’s eyes blazed up and then settled. “I’ll be eleven in a few months.”

  Charlotte and Zeph glanced at one another.

  “Well, then,” said Charlotte, “what would you like?”

  “Chocolate would suit me.”

  Charlotte snorted briefly. “I’m sure it would. Pick out what you’d like.”

  She pointed at a large bar of dark chocolate, and the shopkeeper took it, wrapped it, and placed it in a paper bag. “Thanks,” said Cheyenne to Charlotte. “You’re welcome, dear.”

  Cannonball had left them shortly after the buffalo sighting. Another engineer was running the US Grant into Nebraska. As they climbed back into their car, Zeph noticed familiar faces that were carrying on, as they were, for points farther east: there was a family of five who always smiled at Zeph and Charlotte and the children headed for Florida; a man and wife who bickered abo
ut returning to Liverpool, England, or taking a train back to Sacramento, California; and the portly man in the white suit and gold vest who always tipped his hat to Charlotte.

  “Where you headed?” he asked them as they resumed their seats.

  “As far as the rails will run,” said Zeph.

  “I see.” The man nodded. “Henry Chase, by the way.”

  “Fremont Wyoming. My wife, Charlotte, and my two children, Cody and Cheyenne.”

  “How do you do?” said the man, standing up.

  “A pleasure, Mister Chase,” responded Charlotte, inclining her head.

  Zeph knew his sudden good cheer came from having written out those two telegrams. Instead of running and hiding, he had a chance to fight back and protect Charlotte and the children. It made him feel better than he’d felt in a long time. If only the plan would work. If only Raber would take the bait.

  He settled himself in his seat. He could see the length of the car and everyone coming in and out from the front of the train. Opening a package of Adams New York No. 1 chewing gum, he handed each of them a piece, though Cheyenne preferred her chocolate. Then he glanced out the windows on the north side of the train across the aisle and watched two cowboys, covered in dust, ride past the depot.

  Suddenly a pang of fear stabbed him like a sharp knife. Suppose those two had just come off the Bozeman Trail? How would he know who were just ordinary cowpokes and who were Raber’s gunmen? Just then a man stepped into the car. He was dressed in black from head to foot except for a few silver conchas on his hat and one on his holster. Tall and lean, strength coiled under his clothing. He glanced around, black carpetbag in his grip, met Zeph’s gaze with a look like a gunsight, then took an empty seat halfway down the car, his back to Zeph. He pulled off his dark sheepskin jacket and rolled it up on the seat beside him, tipped his hat to an attractive young woman sitting opposite, and gazed out the window to his left at the same two cowboys Zeph had been watching. The cowboys had stopped and were sitting on their horses, staring at the train.

  For the first time in over ten years, Zeph wished he’d gone heeled, wished he’d bought a small pistol at the general store and slipped it into his coat pocket. What would he do if the man in black was one of Raber’s crew? If he came at them in the night with the train clicking through the wide-open Nebraska miles? If the cowboys were there to back him up and they meant to make their move before the US Grant pulled out of the station?